


Terminal

by neckbeardandfedora



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Part 2, Suicide Attempt Reference, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 22:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1281106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neckbeardandfedora/pseuds/neckbeardandfedora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow-up to "Incurable": http://archiveofourown.org/works/1236958</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terminal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freaking_intelligent_fangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freaking_intelligent_fangirl/gifts).



> I enjoy interspersing scenes of sex with my feels. I wasn't going to make this follow up, but freaking_intelligent_fangirl wanted to cry over the pairing. So there.

For weeks Tony tried to get treatment without anyone knowing. He held the SHIELD doctor to secrecy on pain of death. He had figured he was just panicking at first. He thought he caught it early enough to be treated, and radiation poisoning wasn’t a death penalty. They tried blood transfusions, Prussian blue, DTPA, experimental treatment. And the radiation continued to thrive in his body.

It had made its home in his stomach, his liver, his bone marrow, his kidneys. He knew what it meant, but he refused to believe it.

_________

Tony tinkered with an old broken boom box that he bought from some kid. He overpaid, but the kid needed shoes and he wanted something to play around with to distract him from the sickness. Bruce was working out a few chemical formulas, but soon found himself distracted by how confused Tony seemed. He would just stare at his screwdriver, or fumble with a piece of the equipment he had already repaired.

“You’re looking kind of pale. Let me take a look at you.”

“I’m fine. Just hungry. Or thirsty. Or something.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What, I can’t just be tired? Something has to be wrong with me?”

“You’re right.” Bruce smiled. “Maybe it’s the fumes from all that hair crap you’ve been using lately.”

“It’s not hair crap, it’s designer product.”

“Same thing. You wanna go get something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You just said you were hungry.”

“I am trying to fix this goddamn piece of shit.”

That was the first time Bruce knew something was off.

“Would you let me take a look at you? Maybe run a few-”

“Jesus Christ more fucking tests!” Tony threw down his tools and stormed out of the workshop.

Bruce picked the tools up and put them back where they belonged in that almost nonsensical way Tony liked. He mumbled about how he messed up, was too direct, blowing things out of proportion. He rationalized that he was in the wrong.

_________

One unusually warm winter day, Tony sat in a private room in the med lab, hooked up to an IV and mapping out some schematics on the back of an issue of People magazine. He waited for the results of his most recent slew of tests, not at all optimistic. He still hadn’t gotten over the terror of waiting for the results; the horrific, lonely silence and inevitable bad news. And so, he plotted some nonsensical device with no real purpose all over some celebrity’s face.

_________

Tony was in their bedroom, lying down and staring blankly at the ceiling. Bruce quietly sat next to him. Maybe Tony was a bit “frustrated.” After all, they still each had times where they would lock themselves away in their respective work areas for hours or days on end, and they both understood. They also understood that afterwards, sometimes a little release was needed.

Bruce ran his hand over Tony’s thigh. He kissed his now clean-shaven cheek softly and traced his fingers to the hem of Tony’s pants. He wasn’t getting much of a response, but lately Tony just needed to warm up a little bit. He had actually pushed Bruce’s advances aside on occasion. He traced his fingers the rough jean fabric, along Tony’s hardening cock. His advances were thankfully met with a very satisfied moan.

“It’s been a while now…how about you just relax and let me take care of things tonight.”

The amount of time growing since he asked the question concerned him, but finally, he was given a small nod.

_________

Two hours passed. The People magazine looked more like Mechanical Engineering Magazine. He gently scratched his head and tossed the small tuft of hair in the bio waste container. Most of his hair was synthetic implants that looked and felt real enough to trick people. After that tuft, he had five percent of his natural hair left.

The door opened and someone walked in.

“Bad or worse news?” he asked nonchalantly, knowing good and well what the answer was.

“No news. Just questions.”

Tony’s eyes widened. His heart skipped too many beats for him to count. He couldn’t look up from his sketches. He couldn’t look at Bruce and see whatever look was on his face.

“You don’t have to say anything, but you could at least look at me.”

_________

Bruce kissed the head of Tony’s cock tenderly before slowly sliding his mouth down his length. He gently sucked upward, trailing his tongue along the underside in that way that always made Tony shiver. Over the course of their relationship, Bruce had gone from barely being able to get half of Tony’s length in his mouth without gagging to swallowing him completely, his bottom lip caressing his balls.

He bobbed his head up and down, from tip to base. Tony writhed against the bed. Bruce’s hands wandered over his chest. He playfully flicked and pinched Tony’s nipples, smiling when it just made Tony squirm even more.

He sucked and licked and kissed Tony’s cock until he was spent. Bruce took his time swallowing the warm cum, one small strand dribbling down his chin.

After riding through his orgasm, Tony was out cold in seconds. Bruce pulled his pants back up and covered him with a heavy comforter.

_________

He didn’t like to think of sex as something you manipulated people with or did to get something, especially when sex was something so wonderful he shared with Tony. But something was wrong. He knew the signs: confusion, dizziness, fatigue. He had to know for certain that he was just paranoid, and that Tony just needed more sleep and more fruit in his diet.

Bruce left Tony in the bedroom and went to one of his labs. He had a sample of his own saliva and semen set aside from before he went upstairs to “collect samples”. There was no way he’d have been able to get more samples from Tony without him having another fit.

He swabbed his mouth and scraped the drying semen off his chin. He smeared the swabs on a few petri dishes and labeled them accordingly. 

He ran the tests, making adjustments for the contamination to the samples.

Bruce spent the rest of the night staring at the results that told him how sick Tony was. He couldn’t move. He could barely breathe.

He hated being right sometimes.

_________

“How long?”

“A month.”

“Jesus,” Bruce shakily said as he almost collapsed in the chair beside Tony.

“I didn’t want to ups-”

“Oh fuck you, with that ‘you didn’t want to upset me’ shit.”

“I’m sorry. I am so goddamn sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“I knew this would happen. I fucking knew it.” For the first time in years Bruce felt like he was going to lose control of himself. It wasn’t just him, the other guy was confused and scared and angry too and didn’t understand why and they both just wanted to destroy everything. 

“Just breathe. Please.” Tony tried to put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder, but Bruce slapped it away.

They sat in an uncomfortable, angry silence.

“I know you’re understandably beyond angry with me and there is literally nothing I can say to change that right now, but in about five minutes a doctor is going to come in and tell me that I am probably going to die before spring and I am absolutely terrified.”

Bruce looked up, his face showing just how miserably sorry he was.

“Don’t look at me like that. Just…I dunno, hug me or something,” Tony muttered.

Bruce held him closely with a gentleness he didn’t think he could manage at that point.

When the doctor came in, they didn’t hear what he said, but they both knew the message.

_________

Tony was buried next to his mother. Bruce had no idea what had happened at the funeral. All he could see was the bedroom door as he opened it, holding that nasty protein cocktail Tony had been drinking to keep his energy up with that obnoxiously red straw. And then Tony’s still body, staring at the ceiling. All he could feel was the horrifying realization that he wasn’t there for him in his last moments and the cold desire to join him.

Jarvis had a recording waiting for Bruce – a last message from Tony. He couldn’t listen to it. So, he let it wait.

He let it wait as he traveled across the southern hemisphere. As he hid his misery to avoid the world.

A year passed. Bruce was a worn and tattered man. The other guy was exhausted and anxious and confused and miserable too. He even let Bruce get one cut in before instinctively taking over and crushing the knife. That was when he somewhat came to his senses.

Bruce returned to the Malibu home that had been left to him.

He sat in the workshop for hours, staring at that stupid unfinished boom box.

“Jarvis,” he said meekly.

“Yes, sir?”

“Play the message please.”

“Are you certain, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Very well.”

He braced himself. The recording filled the workshop. It started with Tony coughing, and Bruce almost wretched at the memory of how bad off he was towards the end.

Finally, Tony cleared his voice. “I don’t have anything real witty or meaningful to say. Just uh…I wanted to say you don’t have to do anything for me, Bruce. I mean, do whatever you need to. React however you do, it’s fine.” The coughing began again. He felt the tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Actually, no. Yeah there’s one thing. Just one thing I need you to do for me: Um…keep loving me. Because I’m going to keep loving you.”

The message ended.


End file.
